


Trip Across the Pond

by Descended_from_Hufflepuffs



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019), Torchwood
Genre: Alien things, Gen, Mild Inappropriate Flirting, Swearing, Torchwood- Everyone lives AU, death mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23833363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Descended_from_Hufflepuffs/pseuds/Descended_from_Hufflepuffs
Summary: Torchwood has been looking to expand and NYPD Major Crimes may have found the case to prove their point
Relationships: Dani Powell/Toshiko Sato, Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, JT Tarmel & Owen Harper, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Malcolm Bright & Ianto Jones, Owen Harper & Edrisa Tanaka
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32





	1. Meet the Cast

Malcolm thought he’d everything during his years at the FBI. Gil hadn’t thought anything could surprise him after almost thirty years on the force. JT had seen enough during his years in Afghanistan to be ready for almost anything. Even Dani had gone through some surprising things in Narcotics.

But this? This was new for everyone.

Random people were disappearing and then showing up dead in random locations a few days later. No obvious injuries aside from some minor incisions. The only commonality was the cause of death and the best Edrisa could figure was that the heart just stopped. However, all the bodies were found days after death so pretty much any traces of poison were nonexistent. 

“The killer is distanced from the kill; it’s not personal, it’s professional.” That’s all Malcolm could really come up with. “It seems like it’s some sort of experiment. An educational or professional pursuit. Hard to tell what exactly they’re researching or why but that might explain the randomness of their victims; they want to cover all possible variables.”

“Unfortunately for us, we have virtually no leads.” Gil sighed and sipped his coffee. This case was going cold, fast, which was surprising given that there were already eight deaths. “I’ll have to submit what we have to the brass and see what they tell us to do.” Likely to close the case, but a man could hope.

\--------

Torchwood had dwindled since the London location fell back in 2006. Captain Jack Harkness had been advocating for creating new locations worldwide for a few years now since the Rift had been acting up along with new refugee alleys popping up thanks to Lady Me.

Finally, the Queen relented and the motion was put through to the United Nations. They decided to place a few agents in regular police agencies, for now, to determine how many locations would actually be needed based on how much alien activity there was and how dangerous the average encounter could become.

Anthony Doherty was one agent such placed above the Major Crimes Division in the NYPD. He read the case file once. Then twice. Then five more times before sending the file to Cardiff for further investigation.

\------

Ianto Jones opened the most recent file they’d been sent from their satellite agents, one of hte first ones to come from a New York office. His brow furrowed as he read the file, red flags popping up with each new detail. He printed a few copies of the case for everyone to review.

While he waited, he made fresh coffee for his coworkers and set their favorite mugs out like always. Files in hand, he dropped a copy off with each mug. He saved Jack’s for last, savoring the little moments of alone time they got in his office. “News from New York, sir. Strange case popped up in Major Crimes.”

“Oh? Worth looking into? Or is it another prank?” Jack sipped his Heavy Duty coffee and skimmed over the file.

“I doubt it. Eight deaths so far and even a former FBI agent can’t land a lead. Not to mention the trouble with determining the cause of death. Even if it isn’t alien, I think we could lend a hand.”

“Right. Let’s get everyone in the boardroom for a little chat.”

\-----

“Look, I just don’t see why this is our problem,” Owen griped. “It’s all the way across the pond and there’s nothing wholly alien about it. Just weird.”

“Weird enough to warrant our attention. And alien or not, people are dying Owen and we have the tools to help,” Gwen countered. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“So? We’ve had cases like this before and just sent over some instructions and gadgets. Why do we have to travel this time?”

Tosh cleared her throat. “Because we’ve been getting a lot of activity from New York. The case itself is serious enough for us to go in any case but it would give us an opportunity to scope out a location. Not to mention this Major Crimes team has some potential candidates for a full-time Torchwood location. I’ve looked into their histories and they’d all make a good fit. Meeting them in person would give us even more reason to recommend it.”

“So we’re agreed then?” Jack eyed Owen and smiled when he gave no further objections. “Right then. Ianto, would you-”

“Already booking tickets and rooms, sir.”

_ ~ 1 Week Later~ _

Gil gathered his team outside of the tape of the latest addition to their case. “Alright, I got word last night that not only is this case staying active but we’re being sent reinforcements. Some Special Ops team they’re putting together. We’re supposed to meet them here instead of the precinct for some reason….”

“Maybe they like making an entrance.” JT pointed to a large black van headed their way with the label of  _ Torchwood _ on the side. “Not exactly being subtle….”

The van came to a stop and the team stepped out and walked like they were a slow-motion action hero movie, complete with dark sunglasses and a leader with a billowing coat. 

“Captain Jack Harkness, and who are  _ you _ ?” said a dazzling smile and an extended hand to Gil.

“Lieutenant Arroyo,” Gil replied stiffly. “This is my team, Detectives Tarmel and Powell and our consultant Malcolm Bright.” He could already tell this was going got be a rocky collaboration.

“Pleasure to meet you. This is my team, former cop and amazing field agent Gwen Williams, Medic and resident cynic Doctor Own Harper, Technology and weapons expert Doctor Toshiko Sato, and all-around gorgeous handyman Ianto Jones.”

“Careful, that’s harassment, sir,” said a well-dressed young man who clearly did not mind said harassment.

Gil exchanged a few looks with his team before leading the Torchwood team through the yellow tape. “I assume you’ve already been briefed on the case, Captain Harkness?”

“Please, call me Jack. And, yes, we have. This one’s a thinker for sure but I’m confident my team and I can help you with it. And maybe after that we can go celebrate.” He winked and pat Gil’s shoulder before walking ahead to get a look at the body.

Gwen came up next to the bewildered officer, shaking her head. “Don’t let him scare you too much; he’s like that with everyone.”

More strange looks were shared as everyone gathered around Edrisa and their new kill. “Definitely the same killer as the last time. The incisions are in all the right places although I think they might be longer than before. Once again, no signs of bruising or struggle but the time of death was almost a week ago, twice as long as the previous deaths.” 

Malcolm rolled this new information around in his mind. “Maybe they’re trying to lay low? We’ve been investigating this for a while….”

Toshiko ran a scanner over the body, humming softly as she analyzed the results. “Jack? Come have a look at this….”

The Captain made a small noise of surprise when he saw the data. “Interesting…. Owen, you owe me ten quid! This wasn’t a waste of time.”

“Bloody hell,” the doctor grumbled. “I only bet ten quid on it, you don’t need to make a scene!”

“Care to share with the rest of the class?” Gil asked, barely suppressing his annoyance.

“I would love to,” Jack assured him, ignoring the passive-aggressive tone. “But we’ll need to go somewhere more private first. Trust me, it’s important.”

  
Sighing, Gil motioned for his team to wrap up on the scene. “Let’s head back to the precinct for now.”  _ This had better be worth it…. _


	2. A Tale of Two Leaders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gil realizes this is going to be a difficult case for more reasons than he anticipated.

The NYPD team got back to the precinct first, much to Gil's relief. "So, Malcolm, thoughts on the new guys?"

Malcolm gave him a knowing look. "Well, flirting aside, they all seem perfectly capable. I am curious about how they operate. The captain is clearly the leader but there’s a sense of comradery about them and they don’t seem to have a problem with talking back to him.”

“I’m wondering about that tech they have; I’ve never seen anything like it,” Dani commented. “Do you think it’s like prototype stuff that we’ll get twenty years from now?”

“Who cares? Whatever they’ve got, it might give us a lead and I don’t need to deal with double-digit murders right now.” JT passed out some cold coffee from the breakroom. “Boss seems a bit outside the box though.”

“I know. He definitely has a thing with their ‘handyman’ and I’m pretty sure even high up departments have rules about that,” Dani added.

“You would be surprised,” a Welsh voice commented. 

The whole team jumped and were rather surprised to see the very man they’d been talking about standing behind them with a tray of coffee mugs. “Don’t worry, the others are on their way. I just came in ahead of them to get started on the coffee. Jack gets rather irritated without his industrial strength blend.”

Dani cleared her throat and looked more than a little ashamed along with the rest of the team.  _ The one time we gossip…. _ “Sorry, we were just-”

“Don’t be. Believe me, I’ve heard worse.” He handed her one of the mugs. “I guessed you were more of a tea person. I also have a black coffee with two sugars for Detective Tarmel, a light roast for Special Consultant Bright, and I went ahead with the Industrial Strength blend for you, Lieutenant. You might need it when dealing with Jack’s...unorthodox methods.”

Well, that certainly didn’t help.

The rest of the team was not far behind and everyone grabbed their coffee, with the curious exception of Owen. Gil had definitely pegged him for a caffeine junkie. He was pulled out of his thoughts with Ianto closing all the blinds and locking the door. “This requires privacy?” 

  
  


"Most things with us do," Gwen explained. "And, you might want to sit down. There's a lot of exposition coming."

"Thank you, Gwen." Jack turned everyone's attention to the whiteboard while Toshiko set up a small projector. "The information you're about to be briefed on is highly sensitive and extremely classified. If I didn't have faith in you, you wouldn't be here and we would've pulled the case from you so congratulations on that. Don't prove me wrong; skepticism is fine and very expected but let's not have this running down the grapevine just because you can't stretch your mind enough to understand it."

"Your motivational speeches could use some work," JT mumbled.

"Trust me, this  _ is  _ his improved speech," Owen replied.

“ _ Ahem _ .” Jack called their attention back to the front. “Now, let’s clear up who we are. Torchwood is an investigative organization started by Queen Victoria after she was bitten by a werewolf during a state visit to-”

“I’m sorry,” Gil interrupted. “Werewolf?” He had to be joking, right? 

“Yes, werewolf.” Gwen smiled apologetically. “Sorry about him. He’s been working here so long i think he forgets what it’s like not to sometimes. Basically, we investigate alien activity and Tosh picked up a lot of it at today’s crime scene.”

_ Aliens. Right. Totally more believable. _ “Is that so? And we’re expected to just go along with this?”

“Do you have any other leads?” Tosh questioned with a pointed look. 

“I know it’s all a bit odd but you get used to it,” Gwen assured them, hoping to dispel the skeptical looks. “Come on, humor us for a bit and we’ll see where we land.”

“Right. We just humor you while people’s lives are in danger. Sounds like a good use of our time.” Dani crossed her arms. 

“I’ve had wilder ideas….” Malcolm cut in. “I agree, this is crazier than we’re used to,” he rushed to explain. “But this is Major Crimes. We see weird shit all the time! Falling Swords anyone?” He looked ot Gil for support and, unsurprisingly, found little. “ANd they’re right, it’s not like we have any other ideas. There’s virtually no evidence left at any of the scenes that points to identity and we’ve exhausted every trail on a connection between the victims other than cause of death. Could it really hurt?”

“Other than being a complete waste of time?”

“JT-”

“Alright!” Tosh called their attention to the front with her presentation. “You need proof, yes? Well, I happen to have quite a bit so if we’ll all be quiet? Thank you. Now, when I scanned the body I detected high amounts of Moldroian DNA on the bodies. A bit sloppy for them but no earth technology can detect it so I suppose they let themselves go a bit. I’m sure if I inspect the other bodies I’ll find the same DNA.”

“Moldroians are a race of scientists so your experiment profile was right,” Jack complimented. 

“Wait...if earth tech can’t detect them then how did you do it?”

“I didn’t use earth tech,” Tosh said simply. “Any other questions?”

Gil cleared his throat. “How are we going to track down these Moldroians if they’re so hard to detect? I doubt they’re easy to find with their body count.”

“Well, that’s the thing about Moldroians: they’re easy to detect with the right tools but nearly impossible to track. They travel a lot in their studies so they know how to blend in and properly hide their base. But there are a few things to look for that might help us.”

“Might?” Dani quirked an eyebrow.

“Well, New York is a big city and they’ll use that to their advantage,” Ianto jumped in. “In fact they tend to target highly populated areas. More diversity for their study variables and easier to blend in: the perfect laboratory.”

Well, isn’t this just going swimmingly? Random new team shows up, claims their killer is an alien race obsessed with science, and he has to accept it because this is orders from higher up and he likes keeping his job thank you. “So what’s our next move? Split up and search the whole city?”

"That's exactly what I was thinking!" Jack shot him a wiley grin. "Owen, you got with Tarmel. Tosh with Powell and Ianto with Bright. Arroyo and I will-"

"Hold on, who put you in charge of  _ my _ team?" Gil snapped. He could handle wild alien theories but he drew the line at barging in with unearned authority. "I was told you were the backup, not taking over as you so  _ generously _ refrained from doing."

Jack was about to explain exactly why he should be in charge when Gwen spoke up. "Jack, why don't you bring along the  _ police liaison _ ? Just to smooth things over."

"Gwen, I'm perfectly capable of being charming on my own."

"Oh, yes. I suppose that's why Cardiff's most respected Inspector Swanson refuses to speak with you? Because of all your charm and people skills and uncanny ability to never  _ ever _ piss off anyone else in authority." Gwen smirked when that shut him up. 

"I'm sorry about him," she sighed. "If it's alright with you, Lieutenant, we would appreciate your team's knowledge of the city to narrow down our search options. It would go much faster if we split up."

"I think we can work with that."


	3. A Detective and a Techie Walk Into a Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dani and Tosh investigate a local college campus for clues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okokokokokokokokay I know it's been a bit since I updated so I wanna say a few things here.
> 
> 1) Thank you for anyone who left kudos during my very long absence it meant a lot to me!
> 
> 2) I was gone for a while for a couple of reasons. Reason 1: I lost muse for this fic. I'd open it up and pure nothingness would spew onto the page. Reason 2: This chapter and the next three after it will all be covering the same day with the different pairings I've set up. I wanted to have them all done at once (for some reason) so I basically waited four chapters to upload one. (and yes, all these chapters will be titled with the set up you see above. it's funny.)
> 
> 3) I will be updating all currently written chapters once per week. Once I run out of those, we'll just have to see what happens.
> 
> Thank you again everyone who has read and commented/kudosed! It means a lot to me and I hope you enjoy this!

_ "Looks like some of our victims went to the same University. Most campuses let students participate in experiments for extra credit so we should check there. Dani and Tosh can go check that out." _

Dani tapped her fingers on the steering wheel while they waited for the light to change. Tosh was tapping away on her keyboard and she'd barely said a word since they started working. It was awkward, to say the least.

“...What are you working on there?”

Tosh seemed startled that she asked but answered nonetheless. “I’m setting up the scanner to search just for Moldroian DNA, even if it’s just a trace. Theoretically, we’ll find some in the student common areas, maybe in the dorms. We should at least get some idea of where their hunting grounds are.”

Right, that made sense. "We can interview the roommates while we're there. Maybe they saw something."

\-----------

Tosh got the scanner started when they arrived at the campus. As expected, there were high concentrations centered near the dormitory areas.

With that established, she let Dani handle the permissions they'd need to interview the students while she searched for extra clues. Idly, she wondered if Dani or any of the others would actually be interested in joining Torchwood. Malcolm and Dani were prime candidates, young and open-minded with a touch of recklessness. Gil would bring in some needed authority but she wasn't sure how he would react to the utter lack of oversight they had. JT was a good candidate as well and having a family would help him stay grounded in all the mess that came with being a part of Torchwood. Then again, the dangers presented by their work might push him to stay where he is. 

"Do your investigations normally require this much paperwork?"

"Depends on who we need to question." Dani shrugged. "It’s done now so let’s stop griping about it? We can talk to anyone we need to in the dorms so we may as well get started.”

"Right, let's go then." The sooner they got started, the sooner they could neutralize the threat. 

\-------

They started with the previous roommates of their victims, trying to find any common thread in their recent activities before their death. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to go on as none of them had been with their roommates for long. The only common thread seemed to be that the night before they went missing they went to the on-campus bar. 

“Makes sense,” Dani commented. “If they were looking to sneak people out without raising suspicions, they could just get their target drunk and ‘help them to their car’. Most people won’t question it. We should probably question some of the staff there to see if they noticed anything.”

It wsa the middle of the week so the bar wasn’t too crowded when they got there, which made it easier to talk with some of the staff. Even with the more relaxed atmosphere, questioning didn’t get them very far. Some of the people that had been on shift before the disappearances weren’t in that night and the ones that they could get a hold of either didn’t see anything or they did see things but couldn’t give good descriptions. Tosh suggested they look at the security camera footage and Dani definitely noticed a pout when she heard that would take another warrant.

“Don’t you guys have to do this kind of thing back in the UK?” She asked while they waited for approval.

“Not really,” Tosh confessed. “Torchwood is given a lot of extra permissions since we’re not really a government organization. We were started by the royal family back in Queen Victoria’s day and to this day we only have to answer to Queen Elizabeth and she doesn’t really care much what we do so long as we get the job done.”

_ What? _ “So...if we were on your turf we could just demand to see the footage and talk to whoever we wanted regardless?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Honestly, I’m impressed with your patience. I don’t know how we’d get anything done if we had to do all this for every case.”

Finally, they got approval and asked for a copy of the footage to examine later at the precinct. As soon as it entered their hands, an alert came from both of their coms.

“ _ Back up, back up now!” _

_ “Fucking hell JACK IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!” _

“JT!”

“OWEN!”


	4. A Butler and a Profiler Walk Into a Questionable Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto and Malcolm do some investigating

_ "It doesn't make sense to do tests at random. There has to be some common thread between the victims, something that makes them perfect for the same experiment, a control factor of some sort. Ianto and Bright can stay behind and go over their files and family interviews to see what that is." _

"I never thought I'd see a bigger mess than the Torchwood archives. I was wrong."

Malcolm chuckled. "It's not that bad once you get used to it. I'll go pull any files we need to cross-reference while you go through what we already have."

"I doubt it'll take me that long but alright. I'll make some more coffee; something tells me we might need it."

Malcolm shrugged and started looking through the files for the papers he needed. He figured Ianto must have some extremely high standards for file organization because this was about what he'd had to deal with at the FBI and it all seemed pretty intuitive to him. But that was a quandary for another time. Right now, he had a case to solve.

\-------------------

Ianto made some more coffee while he waited for Malcolm to return. He idly wondered how Jack and Gil were getting on and texted Owen to make a bet on how long they would last before Gwen put one or both of them in time-out. He was sure it wouldn't be more than an hour. He looked up when Malcolm came back, a little surprised he hadn't been gone too long. “That was fast.”

“Told you.” Malcolm smirked and sat across from him. “So, where should we start?”

“May as well start at the beginning.” Ianto gathered all the files for the first victim. “Amanda Sanders. 25 years old, caucasian, self employed, healthy, 5’7”....”

They went through each file like that and nothing obvious really stuck out, aside from Bright pointing out the alphabetical order. “First names, not last names. Could that be part of their process?”

“It’s certainly possible. They would need some metric to determine their next test subject, especially in an area this big. But that can’t be the only thing they look at.”

“Of course not. That just helps them narrow down the pool.” It was a small step but it was still a step.

They looked through the files again, trying to find something, anything that might be somet tiny connection. A hunting ground. A constant factor across their victims. Even if it was just ahir color (it wasn’t). Until-

“Wait, the homeless shelter.”

Ianto paused mid-sip. “Yeah, what of it? Some of them stayed there but not all of them.”

“No, but the rest of them volunteered there.” 

“You think that’s their hunting ground?”

“I think there’s only one way to find out.” Malcolm was out the door before Ianto had a chance to stop him and ask exactly what he meant by that. Well, he hadn’t expected babysitting duty today but it looks like that’s where this is headed.  _ Great. _

\-------

Malcolm was thrilled that they finally had some sort of lead on the case, even if it wasn’t even remotely what he expected. As long as they were getting somewhere and could stop another murder, he was fine with it.

The homeless shelter in question was nearly on the other side of town so he had a moment to stop and wait for Ianto while he hired a cab. “Sorry for rushing out. I get a bit excited when we get breaks on a case like this.”

“Understandable. Jack’s much the same way, though you are much faster than he is.”

Malcolm shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “Well, I’ll try to keep myself under control when we get there.” Well, as much as he was capable of doing so. Which wasn’t much but he could try. 

When they arrived, Malcolm immediately went into investigation mode. He left Ianto to talk to the permanent workers while he talked to some of the other volunteers and looked for any suspicious characters. Logically, if someone wanted to use this place for a hunting ground, they’d need to be in a position where they had access to a register of some sort. Assuming they wanted to do so without potentially getting caught, that meant they needed to be in either a volunteer or permanent position. That narrowed down the suspect pool significantly. Questioning didn’t get him much further as most of the volunteers there that day were either new or just didn’t know the others that well.

With that less exciting development in mind, Malcolm decided to take the investigation in his own hands and snuck into the office to find a register of the volunteers to see who’d been there the longest; there was a good chance that was their suspect. He wouldn’t be able to look for long so pictures would have to do for now. He just needed Ianto to keep them occupied for a little longer….

\--------

Ianto finished with his own unsuccessful interviews not long after and made to leave when he realized he had no clue where his companion was. “Malcolm?” Not in the main room. “Malcolm?” Not in the break room. “Malcolm?” Not outside. “Malcolm?!” Where the fuck was he? He only marginally signed up for this babysitting job and he didn’t need this kind of complication.

He looked around a little longer and cursed himself for not asking Malcolm for his number earlier because, given what he knew about the man, it wasn’t entirely unlikely that he’d chased another lead across town without him. Fortunately for both him and Malcolm Bright, he was just in the office (where he definitely wasn’t supposed to be) and Ianto caught him sneaking out of the supposedly locked door. “I figure you would’ve needed a warrant for that,” he commented as they left.

“Cops need a warrant. I’m not a cop; just a consultant.”

“How very clever of you,” he responded dryly. “I don’t know how they put up with you.”

“I’m charming?”

“Right.”

Any other snarky comments would have to wait because an emergency call came screaming through the coms. 

“ _ Back up, back up now!” _

_ “Fucking hell JACK IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!” _

“JT?!”

“What’s happening?!”


End file.
